The Challenges Facing Basic Rights of Citizenship in Iranian Constitution in the Light of International Human Rights System

The modern concept of citizenship is equalitarian, counter-hegemonic, and liberalistic in essence. Basically, rights of citizenship follow the same concept and guarantee its equalitarian and liberalistic aspects. Meanwhile, the ideas of human dignity, human autonomy are the justifying basics of these aspects because identifying inherent human dignity necessarily involves inherent equality among human beings and, individual autonomy, too is directly an indication of paying respect to free will of human being. Accordingly, it seems that one of the most important obstacles or challenges facing deepening and developing human rights in Iran is the adaptation of a particular and integrative approach to these basic ideas in Iranian constitution. Although, this constitution bears basic characteristics of modern citizenship which resonates revolutionary changes in a large scale in the political thought system in Iran; nonetheless, the most influential on the modern aspects of citizenship is the integration of basic ideas of rights of citizenship with non-modern concepts and impressions which resulted in discrepancies, divergences, contradictions, which in most cases weaken the modern characteristics of citizenship.